


Float On

by Dorian



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 14:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorian/pseuds/Dorian
Summary: June kicks off with a heat wave that feels like July, like the sun battering down on the open road that unrolls right out to the horizon. Jughead pictures all that—Archie’s sometimes moving, often maudlin singer-songwriter Spotify station alternating with Jellybean’s latest meandering prog-rock playlists, the windows down for the rush of the wind and to offset the lack of A/C in the truck, piles of gas station junk food and massive fluorescent blue slurpees. Being able to pick a direction and just go.Yeah, Jughead thinks, over and over.That.





	Float On

He doesn’t see Archie at all the first week of summer vacation. But that Saturday he gets the single floppy disc emoji with a question mark that at some demented moment had become a shorthand for _Come over and play videogames?_  

Jughead sends back the fist bump emoji despite having given up the grating bro-ishness of the gesture in real life years ago.

It’s a long hot familiar walk to the northside. The sun climbs up through the big upside down bowl of a blue sky, close enough to directly overhead that there isn’t a shady side to the street. Sweat gathers at the back of his neck and between his shoulder-blades. So he’s pretty happy to see the Andrews’ house, set up above the single flight of stairs. The dim coolness of the wraparound porch washes over him.

He lets himself into the kitchen.

Archie calls out, “hey," without looking up from the toaster. Jughead hasn’t even got the door closed before a row of Pop-Tarts leaps up with a ding. Archie plucks them out with the tips of his fingers, shaking off the burn after each one. He lays three of them out on a paper towel that he nudges towards Jughead before taking a huge bite of the fourth Pop-Tart. He swears because the chocolate frosting must be too hot. But you’ve got to hand it to him, Jughead thinks, he stays the course, burning frosting or no burning frosting. 

“S’more flavored?” Jughead asks, breaking a corner off of the nearest one but letting the piece drop back onto the paper towel because apparently his survival instinct is a little stronger than Archie’s.

“Uh huh.” Archie tosses a massive, big-box-store bag of Reese’s at him and jerks his chin towards the stairs, taking another bite of Pop-Tart and mumbling around it, “Black Ops III?”

Jughead shrugs because that’s cool and balances the paper towel with the three Pop-Tarts in the spread open palm of his hand as they head up.

They ride out the oven that is Archie’s bedroom, playing Call of Duty and eating peanut butter cups that go gooier and gooier as the day’s heat drifts up through the house, until he and Archie are sweaty and gross and each stripped out of as many layers of clothing as they’re willing to give up. Archie ends up in his boxers. Jughead takes off his hat.

Jughead’s washed-thin tee is sticking to the whole length of his back and clinging against his stomach. Everywhere his clothes touch Archie’s swivelly desk chair feels clammy and disgusting. They’ve been slaughtered at the same sort of ambush point for what seems like hours—and really the same freakin’ ambush shouldn’t be effective that many times in a row—when Jughead makes the call.

“That’s it.” He sets his controller down on the bunched up plaid sheets near Archie’s knee. “Dude, I gotta hydrate.”

Jughead swivels the chair a quarter turn and peers over his shoulder to see how far the afternoon outside has progressed. The light is brutal and flat so it’s not that late. On the edge of his vision he sees the drawn out arc of Archie twisting sideways to fish his running shorts up off the floor. His hip balances right on the edge of the mattress.

Archie’s gives a soft  _ ha! _ in triumph as he lurches out just far enough to snag his shorts without falling off the bed. He flops back onto the wrinkled sheets like a particularly graceless turtle to tug the shorts on over his boxers and doesn’t bother to find a shirt.

All Jughead has to put back on to brave the outside world is his beanie.

They clatter downstairs and out through the front door. 

Archie drops down onto the top step with a dragged out sigh of relief because sometimes just being less miserable feels that good. Even in the shade of the porch, the daylight is bright enough to highlight the sweat on his back and the sharp new lines that hauling rocks five days a week for his dad has already started to leave on his body.

Next door, automatic sprinklers clack away with relentless gentility.

The Andrews’ old camping cooler is tucked into the far corner of the porch by the rocking chair where, in the summer, Mr. Andrews likes to read the newspaper while idly drinking a beer or two. Sodas and a stray Bud Light float in the sloshy mix of ice and water. Jughead grabs two cans of soda and taps the Dr. Pepper against Archie’s bare shoulder.

Archie reaches out without looking up, head hung forward between his shoulders. His other hand runs through his hair, lifting it away from his scalp. 

“Hey, man, thanks.”

The messy tips of his hair stay stuck up enough to cross over the line of the shade into the battering sunlight, turning an unreal sort of red.

Jughead sits on the other end of the same step and downs half the Coke in one go. In his stomach is nothing but sugar though the heat keeps him from feeling as hungry as usual. 

Fine droplets from the sprinkler drift over when the breeze shifts just right, landing against his skin. If he looks over towards the Coopers’ big white house, he can catch arcs of faint iridescence that shimmer where sunlight cuts through the mist the sprinklers kick up.

“You know,” Archie says and stops. Jughead makes a vague inquisitive noise between a  _ hum _ and a  _ huh _ to kick Archie’s thought back into gear and then waits him out. 

“You know, Jug, we never talked about—”

Jughead presses the damp, cold can against the side of his face, which feels fan-fucking-tastic. “About what?”

Archie glances at him. His gaze darts down to Jughead’s mouth and away. 

Oh.

That.

The blindside lands like a shove from behind in a crowded hallway. Jughead jerks back, even as he catches most of the reaction and snuffs out the rest of the recoil.

But enough must get past his guard that Archie turns his face away under the guise of reaching for his soda again.

Archie takes a sip and fidgets, stamping a ring of condensation against the wood on the step between them, then another. The circles interlock like links in a chain.

One of the nearby sprinklers resets its sweep with a series of quick _rat-tat-tats_. A mini-van crawls by. Across picturesque Elm Street, a neighborhood watch sign sticks out of another technicolor green lawn with its huge stylized eye peering out.

At last Jughead says, “I didn’t think there was anything to talk about.” He stares down at his hands where his fingertips are leaving a few dented-in points along the thin aluminum.

He doesn’t say,  _ If there was, you’d have said something months ago. _

“Okay.” Archie frowns and pauses long enough to change his mind about something. “Okay, cool.”

In the distance, another sprinkler resets its sweep.  _ Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. _

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at [@burberrycanary](http://clktr4ck.com/qcg8).


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